Elegy for a Fallen Angel
by Black Sunrise
Summary: Takes place after Episode 26, Spike and Vicious miraculously survive their battles, but Spike's fighting fit while Vicious is in a coma. My musings about what Spike might have to say to Vicious.
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I don't own Cowboy Bebop.

_So far so good._ Spike thought as his ship docked at the Van's avian control center without meeting a Red Dragon fighter plane. He swung himself easily out of the cockpit, landing on the deck with practiced agility. Nobody seemed to have greeted him yet.

Spike's footsteps echoed hollowly down the hallways. The lonely, vacuous silence was eerie on a ship that used to have armed syndicate men at every corner. The gravitational fields were damaged in some chambers as he found various ship debris floated past him.

Like singing along to the tunes of an old song, his feet took him instinctively towards the very heart of the ship. Unlike the other parts of the ship, this chamber was spotless. In the very center of this chamber, stood the sarcophagus-like pod encasing the comatose Vicious. The top shell was clear, and definitely bullet proof.

His heart beat echoed throughout the empty chamber. Spike took a few minutes, breathing in the stagnant air. He had set out from the Bebop at 3 am, anticipating a helluva lot of fireworks before he'd make his way HERE. So when he'd found no barriers or confrontations, he was left with the big question: Now what?

"Jesus Christ. Really pathetic. Not even a ghoul would want to haunt this place." He broke out his whiskey flask, and lit a cigarette. Stepping towards the sarcophagus, he was again struck by the emptiness of the place where the Red Dragon's seat of power had once reigned. A bitter laugh came out of his throat as he looked down on Vicious' grim, sleeping features. The lines around his eyes seemed to have intensified in sleep. The hole his Jericho had left in the middle of his forehead was surreptitiously covered with Vicious' silver hair.

"There's nothing left of your empire." Hewhispered confidentially tohis sleeping nemesis. "What are you waiting for? Aeulogy? It would be a waste of breath commemorating the monster you became, not to mention I'm not built for this kind of delicate, thoughtful proceeding." A cruel smile crossed his features as he imagined Vicious agreeing with him. Clearing his throat with a drag from his cigarette, he continued in a solemn mantra: "We're only built for death, yet it's the only thing we don't do very well. We came to the earth fully incarnated, creatures without a past, without compassion, no cozy childhood memories, evenings spent by some fireside drinking hot chocolate or singing Christmas carols. We're not human, and yet we stubbornly cling onto those things denied to us. Love. Happiness." Flashes of golden hair streaked his memory. "We're selfish, thinking that we can live in both worlds. We're only built for warmongering, we're only supposed to hunger and feed on the blood of others. This is our fate: Our destiny."

The last word was tinged with unwavering conviction, echoing faintly through the chamber. It rang hollowly in Spike's ears, leaving his face gentled and filled with regret.

"Was that what you wanted to hear? Sounds too grandiosefor a couple of petty thugs." Spike paused to take a drag from his cigarette. He had dropped the righteous tone in his voice, lapsing into the confidential one of an old comrade. "We came from the streets, and we lived like there was no tomorrow. We killed, we extorted, we drank, and we loved. Pretty soon we all lost touch of reality in between the constant bloodshed, the betrayals, and the disappointments. Then she came, making everything a little more alive, a lot more complicated."

"I'm not going to apologize for starting up with Julia." He looked into Vicious' face, observing the clench of his jaw and remembering how he used to grind his teeth in his sleep. He also idly wondered if the sound of his voice was causing him to struggle out of his comatose to try to kill him again. Knowing Vicious, he probably was. "The rift between you and I was brewing a long time before: too long I can't remember when it first started. Maybe it was when Mao chose me to succeed him.Maybe ithappened after my accident, when you hadreally needed me and I wasn't there foryou.

"I could have saved you from yourself if I wasn't so lost as well. But life doesn't rewind itself. It seems to stop, it pauses, but it keeps going."

The image of Julia's forward-falling body was proof of that. The five seconds it took for her to hit the ground was probably the longest memory he'd have of her.

But he wasn't here to relive old memories.

"Even if you do wake up, you won't be able to find me. I won't be waiting, I won't come looking for you. I'm just here to say goodbye to a specter from my past, a pale shadow of the man he could have been.

"Hopefully you'll find the peace you were secretly yearning for in this life or the next, or maybe you'll just burn in Hell. Either way, it's not my concern anymore. You're doing it alone."

Draining the whiskey flask, he turned to walk out of the chamber, but not before he heard Vicious' heartbeat flatline.

Climbing into the Swordfish II, he was surprised to see tears streaking down his cheeks.


	2. Wishful thinking

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from Cowboy Bebop

"Where _are_ you, Faye?" Jet called from the living room.

He'd seen the Redtail in the docking bay and expected Faye to be in the living room trimming her nails, or smoking as per usual. He peeked into the bathroom and found nobody there. N_ot taking a shower? _He sniffed the air. _Not putting on another coat of nail polish either. _

"OI!"

_Nobody home, I guess._ He shrugged to himself, welcoming the time to unwind. Whistling a tune to himself, he proceeded past Spike's room to do his usual bonsai-trimming when he found the door was open.

"Faye?"

She was in the midst of shutting Spike's bureau in a panic. She hadn't expected Jet to pop his head in around the corner. Her face was flushed as if she'd been reading Spike's diary. _Or looking at something personal she shouldn't have._ Jet thought, his eyes narrowing on the guilty party.

"What were you doing?" he asked her suspiciously.

"Why should I be up to something?" she demanded contritely, plunking her hands on her hips and mustering up a very cute and alluring pout she seemed to reserve for him. _As if she could get anything past me. _ "I don't know where I put my lighter so I was looking for one."

Jet was still at the doorway. Never in the last year had he dared to open this door. At least, not without a metal detector or a fumigator. Daring a step past the forbidden boundary, his left heel followed his left toe, and was joined with the other foot.

"How many times have you been in here?" he asked her in a hushed tone.

"You needn't talk as if you're at a fu…" Faye stopped herself before she said 'funeral'. "fucking library!"

Despite her angry tone, there was something in her eyes. She looked relieved, secretly elated by something she found. She was almost brimming with an inner happiness. _Like she found the secret entrance to Fort Knox under her pillow. _

Jet looked past her to the pile of laundry carelessly tossed in the corner of Spike's room. _It's like he expected to come back. _And then Jet shook his head, correcting himself for being so naive. _Then again, what's a pile of laundry when your lover's dead and your worst enemy wants your head on a platter?_

And then he felt Faye brush past him, claiming some excuse to take a shower.

Hearing the bathroom door slam, he opened the drawer Faye hastily shut. It wasn't a picture of Julia, as he expected for somebody so in love with her. _Didn't they supply cameras at the crime syndicate? _ It was a picture some crazy hippy tourist had taken of the Bebop crew. _This HAS to be what Faye was looking at. _Jet surmised, smirking at the fingerprints her hot little hands had left along the corners of the picture.

They were in Ganymede, sun shining, waters sparkling… you couldn't tell that the fishing docks were reeking ESPECIALLY well on a good, hot day like that or that the crew were still in the midst of arguing over who got to sit where or how. They all looked picture perfect. Even the kid. And the dog, well, animals always look cute in pictures. _Except sea-rats. _

Spike was leaning forward in the Swordfish's cockpit with that cocky grin on his face, as if to say "You gonna take that picture or what, man?". Ed was perched on the tail backwards, bent over double so her head was peeking from between her knees. Jet, of course not given to family portraits had demurely chosen the back of the picture. He had to admit he looked really good. _Maybe I should pose for pictures more often. _ And then he had to laugh when he looked at Faye. Ever the one to take the foreground (and compete with Spike for it), she had chosen to lean back against the cockpit, legs provocatively splayed, body twisted so she could encircle Spike with her arms.

It was just any other day on the Bebop, but this picture heightened every distinctly attractive facet of their personalities. For one flash, they all seemed like a very unique, special bunch of people enjoying a spectacularly sunny day.

He replaced the picture in the drawer with a heavy sigh. A rumpled, half-smoked cigarette pack lay on the bureau top.

_A man like Spike always leaves loose ends behind him, because there's nothing here to make him stay._

Except for Julia, Spike was NOT the kind of man to romanticize or be involved with other people in his life. It was like he'd known all along that it was only a matter of time before he'd have left the Bebop for good.

But then, why _did_ he keep that picture? Was it because he didn't _really _want to go, or because he became more attached to them than he'd let himself believe?

_Wishful thinking. _Jet scolded himself, shaking his head before that thought firmly lodged itself in his mind.

He left the room before he got any more sentimental. While it was a nice surprise to find a 'family' portrait hidden away in Spike's drawer, it was another to rationalize the inside of Spike's head. Giving the bonsais a break from his grueling pruning sessions, he decided to get back to preparing dinner.

Craving a cigarette, he tipped one to his lips and picked up Faye's lighter lying openly on the table by the yellow sofa.

"Don't know where you put it, my ass." He said to nobody in particular.


End file.
